Two wine retailers, Depozitul de Vinuri and Vinlux, both positioned on the high-price segment, closed their stores in Bucharest in the second half of this year.
On a mature market where there are hundreds or even thousands of players, the exit of two players would probably go unnoticed, but in Romania specialised retail is weakly represented, with no more than five strong players.
Given that both Depozitul de Vinuri and Vinlux had announced nationwide expansion plans, their decision to exit the market is even more important.
Depozitul de Vinuri, developed by businessman Octavian Radu, owner of RTC group of firms, and Vinlux, held by Alexandru Constantin, doing business in the field of metallurgy, both stopped operating this month.
In the case of Vinlux, its general manager stated the store was closed for "personal reasons", confirming the closing of the store in the Parliament Palace area without providing further details. Vinlux last year generated turnover worth almost 100,000 euros and losses of 15,000 euros, according to Finance Ministry data.
In the case of Depozitul de Vinuri, Octavian Radu says several factors triggered the decision to close, including the alternative domestic wines represent for import wines, the lack of a sufficiently developed wine culture or the "disproportionately" high necessary financial resources compared to the size of the business. Radu says wine distribution as a stand-alone business is not competitive compared with wine distribution attached to alcoholic drinks distribution. His company last year tripled turnover in RON to over 1 million euros.
Major operators of wine retail networks have not entered the domestic market so far because the volumes sold are not high enough to justify an investment.
Catalin Paduraru, the majority shareholder in Vinexpert, the biggest wine retailer on the domestic market says it is not the sales volume that sets the position of such stores on the market, but "the structure of the offering, personnel skill level and the credibility rate". On an immature market, as the Romanian market is at present, retailers on the medium-price segment stand more chances to survive, but only provided that they migrate to the high-price segment or the hard-discount one.
Though at the beginning of the year wine imports were expected to flood the market, their presence is not very strong so far.
The battle, industry players say, will be fought on opposite price segments, the very low and the luxury one. Imported wines have not gained a solid position in terms of Romanian consumers' preferences, but have made their first victims: specialised retailers.
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